Literary Techniques The Good Earth

1. By: Kaitlyn Williams Literary TechniquesThe Good Earth

2. Metaphor: • “A wave of anger passed over him at his father” (Buck, 6) Wang Lung is frustrated with his old weary father who lives with him day and night. Wang Lung cares and nurtures his father who can barely walk and fend for himself. The metaphor that Pearl S. Buck added to his novel refers to the mood of the chapter. Wang is tired of doing all the farm work and taking care of his father. He is enthralled about getting a new wife who will take on his daily duties in the kitchen and release him from his suffering.

3. Magic 3! • O-lan and Wang Lung are working together and tending to the farm. Together they are moving in a formation and getting the job done quicker. “Each had a turn at this earth. They worked on, moving together-together-producing the fruit of this earth-speechless in their movement together. (Buck, 30) The mood referred in this quote is very moving. The newly married couple are acting as one and bonding in a way.

4. Symbolism: “the land” • Since the beginning of the book and before Wang Lung the land has been there to feed and take care of him and his ancestors. Now that it is his it feeds and takes care of his wife and children. The land represents Wang Lung’s ancestors and all their hard work and energy that was put into the land. “if I had anything to sell I would sell it and go back to the land.”(Buck, 118) “At least I have the land-I have the land”(Buck,88) The main thing that matters to Wang Lung is going back north and returning to his land again.

5. Imagery: “He went in then, and she lay there upon the bed, her body scarcely raising the cover. She was alone.”(Buck, 82) As Wang Lung comes into the room where his wife and new born child are lying he finds only his wife in the bed alone. She has given birth to a second daughter and she could not bare another disgrace into the family, because there is no need for another female. Author creates the feeling of suspense and shame in this sentence. An image of O-lan just laying there alone in the dark is noticed and helps set the scene of what is happening.

6. Protagonist: • Wang Lung is the protagonist of the novel. He is not necessarily the good guy but he is whom the reader is referring to mainly when following along with the story.

7. Simile: • “He lived in the rich city as alien as a rat in a rich mans house that is fed on scraps thrown away.”(Buck,107) Wang Lung and his family have made it to the new city in the south. The people look the same with dark hair and dark eyes but they do now act nor speak the same. To understand the people in the south they have to listen carefully for it is difficult to understand them clearly.

8. Personification: • “…here in the farms about the city men urged their land with perpetual stinking fertilizing of human wastes to force the land to a hurried bearing of this vegetable and that besides their rice. “ (Buck, 107) Men used things to make the growth of the land faster. As the quote says they force it and urge the fertilizing. In reality you can’t necessarily force land to grow, it grows at its own speed.

9. Repetition: • Wang Lung is speaking to a man about how he wishes to sell his daughter to get money to go back to his land. “When rich are too rich there are ways, and when the poor are too poor there are ways” (Buck,119) “This is one of the ways when the poor are too poor. When the rich are too rich there is a way, and if I am not mistake, that way will come soon.” (Buck,120) “There is a way when the rich are too rich.”(Buck,121)

10. Motif: birth, death, and the cycle of nature • Buck draws parallels between the natural cycle of growth, death, and regeneration and the rise and fall of human fortune and human life. When O-lan gives birth to her first two sons, for instance, she immediately returns to tending the fields, which connects the creation of human life to the bounty of the earth. Similarly, the droughts, floods, and famines that ruin the earth’s harvest are metaphorically linked to death and downfall. • Wang Lung’s religious observance serves as a measuring stick of his mindset. When Wang Lung feels a strong connection to the earth and when his fortunes are good, he is extremely pious and frequently shows signs of faith in the earth god (as when, for instance, he burns incense to celebrate his marriage to O-lan). When his connection to the earth is weak and when his fortunes decline, he often reacts with bitterness toward the gods and does not outwardly worship them (as when he refuses to acknowledge their statues when he moves his family south during the famine). When Wang is in a period of transition, as when his fortunes are changing, he is often anxious about the gods and prays frequently to them to preserve his good luck.

11. Symbol: The house of Hwang • The House of Hwang is a symbol of wealth, extravagance, decadence, and downfall throughout the novel, a constant reminder of wealth’s corrosive effect on morality and long-term success. As the site of the Old Mistress’s opium addiction, the Old Master’s whoring, and the young lords’ abuse of slaves, the house is a palpable sign of disconnection from the land and of narcissistic self-absorption. When Wang Lung buys the House of Hwang after O-lan’s death, the transaction is a grim symbol of his own family’s fall from grace, represented by his children’s decision to sell his land and live in splendor in the Hwangs’ house.